The total installed capacity from thermal, hydro and nuclear stood at 306,358 MW in 2016. 400 kV transmission and substation completion got over achieved in the 4 years of 12th Five Year Plan itself. HVDC and 765 kV will be the key focus area in 2017. Exports are playing a major role in overall growth of the electrical equipment industry. While the government’s initiatives can result in some positive growth in the near future, the central theme is about transforming India into a manufacturing hub with world class technology. IEEMA as one of the partners of the ‘Make in India’ campaign has been vigorously pursuing policy-makers to promote Made in India products with state-of-the-art technology. We are working closely with the Ministry of Power for implementation of schemes like Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS).

India is on a trajectory of double digit growth in the next few years. We believe the current demonetisation exercise will help cement this. We might face a few hiccups as the GoI takes steps to further streamline growth by making it more inclusive and formal. We strongly believe that several initiatives – 24×7 electricity access for all, emphasis on rural electrification, move to a more digital economy, Smart Cities and growing urbanisation has brought the Indian power sector to a very interesting point of growth.
The hunger for growth can only be satiated by well thought out investments by the entire value chain – utilities, equipment suppliers and manufacturers. Well and truly the onus has now shifted to the industry for taking it forward to the next stage of growth by leveraging government investment and participating in the India growth story.

Amit Jain, MD, CMI Ltd

Equipment
We expect the Indian economy to recover in Q1 of FY 2017-18. As far as the wires and cables sector is concerned, we expect solar and power domains to provide growth momentum to the sector. With the slowdown in the real estate sector, we would imagine that there would be muted demand for the domestic segment. Smart city projects are seeing some traction and 2017-18 is expected to see the projects really taking off. This will provide demand to the niche and highly specialised cables segment.